The tournament is played in the Indian Wells Tennis Garden (built in 2000) which has 20 tennis courts, including the 16,100-seat main stadium, which is the third largest purpose-built tennis stadium in the world.[3] After the 2013 BNP Paribas Open the Indian Wells Tennis Garden started an expansion and upgrade of its facilities that includes a new 8,000 seat Stadium II.[4]

The tournament was founded by Charlie Pasarell and Raymond Moore. The men's tournament was previously called the American Airlines Tennis Games (1974–1978), the Congoleum Classic (1979–1980, 1982–1984), the Grand Marnier/ATP Tennis Games (1981), the Pilot Pen Classic (1985–1987), the Newsweek Champions Cup (1988–1999), the Tennis Masters Series Indian Wells (2000–2001),[5] and the Pacific Life Open (2002–2008).

The women's tournament was previously called the Virginia Slims of Indian Wells (1989–1990); the Virginia Slims of Palm Springs (1991); the Matrix Essentials Evert Cup (1992–1993); the Evert Cup (1994, 1999), or the State Farm Evert Cup (1995–1998) in honor of Chris Evert; the Tennis Masters Series (2000–2001); and, the Pacific Life Open (2002–2008).

The BNP Paribas Open has become one of the largest events on both men's and women's tour, with 96 top professional players entering in the main draws. Dubbed "Grand Slam of the West",[6][7] it is the most-attended tennis tournament in the world outside of the four Majors.

Venus and Serena Williams, two very highly ranked American women, have refused to play the Indian Wells tournament since 2001 despite threats of financial sanctions and rating point penalties. The two were scheduled to play in the 2001 semi-final but Venus withdrew to injury. Amid speculations of match fixing, the crowd for the final loudly booed Serena Williams when she came out to play the final and continued to boo her intermittently through the entire match, even to the point of cheering unforced errors and double faults.[10] Williams won the tournament and was subsequently booed during the awards ceremony. The following month at the Ericson Open, Richard Williams, Serena and Venus's father, claimed racial slurs were directed at him while in the stands.[11] Neither Venus nor Serena have played the tournament since. On February 4, 2015, however, Serena Williams announced she would play the 2015 tournament, thus ending her 14-year boycott of the event.[12]